Instant Adhesion of Amyloid-like Nanofilms with Wet Surfaces

Abstract

The adhesion and modification of wet surfaces by an interfacial adlayer remain a key challenge in chemistry and materials science. Herein, we report a transparent and biocompatible amyloid-like nanofilm that breaks through the hydration layer of a wet surface and achieves strong adhesion with a hydrogel/tissue surface within 2 s. This process is facilitated by fast amyloid-like protein aggregation at the air/water interface and the resultant exposure of hydrophobic groups. The resultant protein nanofilm adhered to a hydrogel surface presents an adhesion strength that is 20 times higher than the maximum friction force between the upper eyelid and eyeball. In addition, the nanofilm exhibits controllable tunability to encapsulate and release functional molecules without significant activity loss. As a result, therapeutic contact lenses (CLs) could be fabricated by adhering the functionalized nanofilm (carrying drug) on the CL surface. These therapeutic CLs display excellent therapeutic efficacy, showing an increase in cyclosporin A (CsA) bioavailability of at least 82% when compared to the commercial pharmacologic treatment for dry eye syndrome. Thus, this work underlines the finding that the bioinspired amyloid-like aggregation of proteins at interfaces drives instant adhesion onto a wet surface, enabling the active loading and controllable release of functional building blocks.